


Twenty-Seven Kisses

by GrayJay



Category: Excalibur (Comic), New Mutants, X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-13 05:28:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1214404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayJay/pseuds/GrayJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sixth kiss counts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _What it says on the tin. -GJ_

The first kiss doesn’t count because Kitty is so surprised she phases, and afterwards Illyana crosses her eyes and grins like a lunatic, and they both run off laughing like it’s the best joke they’ve ever heard.


	2. Chapter 2

The second kiss doesn’t count because it’s Truth or Dare, and everyone knows Illyana never picks Truth.


	3. Chapter 3

The third and fourth kisses don't count because they’ve been sipping from a bottle of wine Illyana smuggled in from god-knows-where, even if neither of them is quite as tipsy as she’s pretending to be.


	4. Chapter 4

The fifth kiss doesn’t count, because if it counts, the rest probably did, too.


	5. Chapter 5

The sixth kiss counts.


	6. Chapter 6

The seventh kiss is the first one Kitty initiates. She knows she’s not very good at it, so she asks Illyana, who tells her that it definitely counts.


	7. Chapter 7

After the eight kiss, Kitty says something about having had a crush on the wrong Rasputin, and Illyana laughs so hard she falls off the bed.

Kitty rolls off after her in solidarity, so the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth kisses happen on the floor.


	8. Chapter 8

The thirteenth kiss is during Truth or Dare again, which means only Illyana and Kitty know that it counts.


	9. Chapter 9

Doug walks in on the fourteenth kiss, turns bright red, and flees, but Kitty manages to catch him and drag him through a wall into the cleaning closet, where she feels a little guilty about how easily she extorts a promise of secrecy.


	10. Chapter 10

After the fifteenth kiss, Kitty asks, “Should we talk about what this is?” 

“What do you want it to be?” says Illyana. 

“I don’t know,” says Kitty. 

“There you go, then,” says Illyana.


	11. Chapter 11

The sixteenth kiss is in the swimming pool and involves a lot more spluttering and choking than Esther Williams movies have led them to expect.


	12. Chapter 12

Doug’s promise turns out to be moot, because by the seventeenth kiss Ororo has obviously figured something out. She calls Kitty up to the greenhouse for a talk that ends with Kitty shouting, “If you’re so worried about me getting _hurt_ , take me off the stupid _roster_ ,” loudly enough to hear in the den. Kitty stomps in a moment later, grabs Illyana, kisses her messily, then turns around and yells, “What are _you_ looking at?” before storming off in the direction of the Danger Room as Bobby tries to scrape his jaw off the floor. Piotr starts to say something, but clearly thinks better of it. Illyana shrugs and reaches for the remote. Logan raises an eyebrow and goes back to his book.


	13. Chapter 13

The eighteenth and nineteenth kisses are mostly for Ororo’s benefit.


	14. Chapter 14

The twentieth kiss is a lot like the seventeenth kiss, but it happens in the Danger Room, where Logan and Illyana are in the middle of a long and pointed conversation. Kitty fries out half the circuits on her way in, yells at both of them, and leaves through the far wall.


	15. Chapter 15

Illyana decides privately that the twenty-first kiss should be the last one.


	16. Chapter 16

The twenty-second, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth kisses taste like salt and are punctuated by promises neither of them can ever imagine breaking.


	17. Chapter 17

The twenty-fifth kiss happens for the first time in a bedtime story Kitty makes up one night when Illyana can’t sleep. It happens again immediately afterwards in Illyana’s bed when she still can’t sleep, and sometime after that, Kitty decides it’s probably okay to let herself lose count.


	18. Chapter 18

They don’t really decide beforehand that the last kiss is going to be the last kiss. It just is, and things mostly settle back to the way they were, and that’s pretty much okay. And then Illyana’s a kid again, so it’s irrelevant anyway.


	19. Chapter 19

There’s only one kiss after the last kiss, and the worst part of it is the moment immediately after, between when Kitty wakes up and when she remembers that she’s in the lighthouse and Illyana is dead. Later that day, she draws the Soulsword for the first time and decides that maybe that means this one counted, too.


End file.
